Tuesday, May 15, 2012

Frosted Designs - Show Me Sunday - by Sassy

It is my turn to bring you a tutorial for Frosted DesignsShow Me Sunday. Often, people email me to ask how I make my flowers. Originally, my tutorial was going to be on making one's own glimmer mist. Mind you, my technique is used by many and is very basic.

Turn flower over. You can see I soaked the bottom layer from the back.
See how much color is visible once turned over.

Spray from the top soaking. You can see puddles of mist.

Lift and mist the various layers.

When all wet with the mists and to the color degree you want, scrunch into a ball.
At this point the ball is so wet that when squeezed mist runs from the flower.
(Also, this is the reason I normally use homemade glimmer mists and color washes - much cheaper.)

Slowly begin to unfold the flower but still leaving lots of dimension in place.

Keep unfolding until sight of the middle.

Using a heat gun and a wooden skewer, begin to lift the various layers and position to your liking.

Completed flower with lots of color, dimension, and texture.

Flower #2

For this flower, I use the Heidi Grace 12 x 12 Embossed Punch Out Pad "Daisy Dear" and Ranger Perfect Pearls Mist. Each flower layer has been inked with Memento Bahama Blue.

Layer flower and insert brad to hold in place.

Turn flower over and mist heavily.
You can see the puddles of mist.
My personal preference is a good soaking.

Turn over and mist from the top heavily living layers to saturate.

Crumple into a small ball.

Begin unfolding flower finding each layer.
Paper flowers tear easily.
If you lose a petal, complete the drying process crumpling the one petal and
inserting where needed at the end with a small drop of glue.

Using the wood skewer lift the various layers.

Continue heating, rearranging and recrumpling to get the desired effect of your choice.

Almost done with layers in place.

Completed flower.

I hope you enjoyed my quick, easy, cost-efficient tutorial (especially if you make your own mists). This method works on a variety of materials - coffee filters, paper towels, newspaper, cardstock, patterned paper, brown paperbags, etc. What I failed to mention is I always put down either paper towels or coffee filters before beginning to mist. I then either make those while wet into flowers or let them dry and remist with water later when needed. In addition, the coffee filters and paper towels work well in mixed media and altering to provide a texture or dimension.

If you have any questions, please leave me a comment and a way to contact you. I am more than happy to get back to you.